I thought being a digital nomad was the dream. Here are 10 realities nobody warned me about

The dream started on a Tuesday, like most bad ideas.

I was at a coworking space over a café in Lisbon, peeking at the Atlantic through a row of palm leaves and thinking, I have cracked it. Laptop, sunlight, cheap espresso. I sent a smug photo to a friend back in New York. He replied with a screenshot of a blizzard and the words, “You win.”

Then the Wi-Fi hiccuped during a client call, a scooter backfired under the window, and a parade I didn’t know about swallowed the street. My “office” dissolved into brass horns and confetti.

I jogged to another café, tripped on cobblestone, and arrived sweating into a meeting about brand voice. Somewhere between the second café and the third apology, the little voice in my head whispered what I would spend the next year slowly admitting:

Being a digital nomad is a dream, yes. It is also a job you work for every single day.

I used to own a small chain of restaurants. Kitchens taught me that fantasy only survives with prep, timing, and hard-won routines. The road taught me the same thing, except the walk-in fridge keeps changing countries.

Here are ten realities no one warned me about, or maybe they did and I was too excited to hear.

1. Time zones are a stealth relationship tax

You will think you can love people across nine hours the way you love them across one. You can, just not on the same schedule. Morning for you is midnight for them. Their crisis lands at your bedtime. Your win arrives during their commute. The text you meant to send becomes a novel you shouldn’t. Calls require choreography. Spontaneity fades. You learn to say “tomorrow” when you mean “much later.”

The fix I learned: install two rituals. A weekly standing call that no one moves, and a “voice memo diary” you send at the same time each day. Friends can listen whenever. You stop feeling like a ghost who only appears when the math works.

2. Wi-Fi is your real boss

Island café with a wooden sign? Gorgeous. Also, an internet connection that melts at 3 p.m. when the blender starts. City library with marble floors? Reverent, yes, and closed for a holiday you didn’t know existed. Hotel internet that says “high speed” in the listing? That means “we have a password,” not “you can upload a video.”

I now travel with a cheap unlocked phone and local SIM, plus a short list of “failsafe” spaces within a ten-minute walk. The dream is sunsets. The job is redundancy.

3. Cheap countries aren’t actually cheap lives

You save on rent and blow it on convenience. Laundry service, coworking day passes, nonstop taxis, last-minute flights when your visa math was wrong. You eat well for little, then buy a new charger, a keyboard, and a mouse because you left yours in a tuk-tuk. You trade a $3 lunch for a $300 “oops.”

Budget for “oops.” I call it the “cobblestone tax,” and it is ten percent of every month. If you beat it, great. If you don’t, you are covered when your hostel gives your bed to a guy named Greg because your train was late.

4. Your routine will fight you, and sometimes it wins

No one tells you how much energy goes into finding the next bed, the next market, the next gym, the next corner where your brain will behave. Decision fatigue is not dramatic. It is a slow leak. By month three, you are skipping workouts because the yoga studio is two neighborhoods away and the class is “restorative,” which is code for napping with strangers.

The restaurant version of me finally showed up and saved me. I set a travel mise en place: same morning playlist, same 15-minute mobility routine, same breakfast, same time. New city, familiar day. Boring is a lifesaver. Boring is how you keep working.

5. Beauty is not a productivity tool

You will try to work from scenic overlooks. You will tell yourself that a cliff with Wi-Fi is the office you were born for. Then you will spend ninety minutes squinting at glare and nursing a sunburn while a seagull heckles your quarterly plan. The ocean is for looking, not editing. The piazza is for people-watching, not budgets. Accept the division of labor.

I do ninety percent of my work in plain rooms with good chairs. Then I take the scenic walk I promised myself. The reward makes the work better. The work gives the reward meaning. Separate them and you stop resenting both.

6. Loneliness hides in gorgeous places

You can be surrounded by beauty and feel like a museum guard. The art is stunning. The shift is long. You start talking to yourself in grocery aisles because choosing yogurt in a foreign language gives you a small sense of control. You will meet people. You will like them. Most will be moving in the opposite direction next week.

I learned to build “thin threads” in each city. One café where the staff learns my name. One market vendor who sees me twice. One class, usually language or boxing. I am not trying to become a local. I am trying to feel like a person while I am here.

7. Your work identity goes through customs, too

Back home, people know what you do because they have watched you do it. On the road, your job becomes a paragraph you perform. “I write, consult, sometimes coach, used to own restaurants.” You will say it too many times and feel like an actor with one scene. Imposter syndrome shows up with a tiny suitcase and asks if it can stay for a week.

The antidote is receipts. Track outcomes. Names, numbers, before and after. When someone asks “So what do you do,” give them one crisp example and stop. Then ask about the best thing they ate this week. The conversation becomes human again.

8. Health becomes a discipline, not a vibe

Your sleep will get punched by jet lag and apartment noise. Your digestion will stage protests after the third miraculous street food night. Your “walk everywhere” plan is great until you sit for eight hours because rain swallowed the day. Health on the road is not romantic. It is a checklist. Water. Protein. Greens. Sunlight. Movement. Bedtime. Repeat.

I carry a cheap jump rope and a resistance band. I travel with magnesium and an eye mask. Boring, again. Necessary, again. The dream wears sweatpants when it is off camera.

9. Visas, taxes, and paperwork will outwit your confidence

Every country is a story problem from eighth grade that you thought you would never need again. How long can you stay. Can you work here if your clients are elsewhere. What does “work” mean if you are staring at a laptop and not employed by a local company. Are you a tourist with a to-do list or a clandestine office employee in shorts.

I am not a lawyer. I am a man who once assumed “thirty days” meant “thirty days,” and learned about entry and exit math the sweaty way. Read the fine print. Read it again. Put reminders on your calendar a week before you need them.

10. The “home” conversation will come for you

At some point, someone you love will ask where you live. You will say “here” and point at a backpack. They will nod and change the subject because they do not want to argue. The truth is you will also ask yourself the same question at 2 a.m. in a room that smells like lemon cleaner and last night’s party. You will wonder whether you are running toward something or just running.

The only answer I found was to practice both. Travel with intention for a season. Then rent a place for three months in a city that fits your nervous system and call that home without apology. Let the road and the couch share custody.

Two small scenes the dream does not post

The laundry sprint. The only laundromat in town closes at six but Google says seven. You arrive barefoot in sandals with a tote full of your life. The clerk locks the door at 5:58 and points to a handwritten sign taped to the glass. You smile, nod, and spend the next twenty minutes hand-washing socks in a sink the size of your laptop while FaceTiming a client who thinks your “office” has a very pleasant echo.

The thunderstorm deadline. You book a quiet cabin for a deadline, savor the silence, and realize the rain drowns the cell signal, which powers the router, which powers your entire plan. You drive to a gas station, buy a coffee, and upload a 40 MB file over four bars of 3G while sitting on a case of windshield washer fluid. You hit send and laugh because this is somehow still better than your old commute.

What the road gave me that I did not expect

A deeper respect for ordinary days. When every backdrop changes, the constant becomes your habits and the couple of humans who love you. If I can write clean paragraphs in a dull room and make dinner for one with a hot plate, I am more powerful than any skyline can make me feel.

A humbler definition of “adventure.” Sometimes the bravest thing is saying no to the 3 a.m. bus and yes to a good night’s sleep. Adventure is not a volume knob. It is a series of deliberate invitations. You pick a few.

A better relationship with work. I used to measure productivity by hours. Now I measure by outcomes and recovery. On the road I learned to land planes in fewer passes. I also learned to protect the runway.

If you are considering it, a simple starter kit

Choose one base city with good infrastructure and a rhythm your body likes. Start there for a month.

Build a three-item routine: movement, a focused work block, a social touch point. Repeat daily.

Install redundancy: local SIM, backup café, offline maps, portable charger.

Budget a ten percent “cobblestone tax.” Celebrate the months you don’t need it.

Keep a “glove box” in your backpack: eye mask, earplugs, magnesium, protein bars, a small first-aid kit, and a short list of numbers you can call when plans melt.

Set a return date before you leave. It will loosen something in your chest. You can move it later if the life fits.

A quick note on privilege and posture

The nomad life is a choice many people cannot make. The fact that you can make it is a debt you should pay with generosity. Tip well in places that look like bargains because they are only bargains to you. Learn the two words in the local language that matter most, please and thank you. Leave a room better than you found it. Share directions. Share chargers. Share patience.

Final thoughts

I thought being a digital nomad was the dream. Parts of it are. Sunsets become your commute. Strangers become short-term neighbors. You learn cities through their grocery aisles and train stations, which is the best education I know. The rest is a job. You are not escaping structure. You are rebuilding it every few weeks with fewer tools and more weather.

If that sounds terrible, good. You just saved yourself a year of expensive proof. If it sounds honest and still worth it, pack light and carry a routine that can survive turbulence. The dream works when you treat it like a craft.

Prep, timing, mise en place, humility. And the photo you send back home, the one your friend replies to with a blizzard screenshot and “you win,” will be true on the days you earned it.

On the other days, you will be hand-washing socks in a sink and laughing at your own optimism, which is also a kind of dream, the one where you keep learning how to live.